(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display and a driving method thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (hereinafter referred to as an LCD) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays. The LCD includes two display panels provided with electric field generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. In the LCD, voltages are applied to the electric field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer. Due to the generated electric field, liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer are aligned and polarization of incident light is controlled, thereby displaying images.
The LCD also includes switching elements connected to the respective pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines such as gate lines and data lines for controlling the switching elements and applying voltages to the pixel electrodes.
Among these LCDs, a vertical alignment mode LCD, which arranges major axes of liquid crystal molecules so as to be vertical to the display panel in a state in which an electric field is not applied, has been widely used due to its high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle. Here, the reference viewing angle implies a viewing angle that is 1:10 in contrast ratio, or a critical angle of gray-to-gray luminance reversion.
In order to approximate side visibility to front visibility in the vertical alignment mode LCD, a method of causing a difference in transmittance by dividing one pixel into two subpixels and applying different voltages to the two subpixels has been suggested.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.